Who do you think will have a better NBA career. I just rewatched MO’s 2018 season and forgot how damn good he was. After struggling his first few years in the NBA, he’s found a niche with his offensive prowess. Wolf will be fortunate have as long and successful an NBA career.
Mo Wolf
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Like you said, Moe was (and still is) a bucket. I forgot how well he shot the college three.
Danny is a different beast - have to see how his shooting translates, and he has to finish better at the rim (something Moe is very good at). But he’s a playmaker, whereas Moe is more of a finisher (see Danny’s 130+ assists this past season). He’s got the potential to fall somewhere between the Franz-Moe archetypes (since we’re doing UM alumn comparisons), but obviously Franz is on another level right now.
Danny and Moe are both offensive+ players, and Danny’s NBA career is going to be defined by how good a defender he can be. I feel that Danny’s defense will be slightly better than Moe’s, but Moe compensates with his trash talking.
I sort of disagree - Wolf’s career is going to be defined by how well his on-ball game works. He CAN shoot, he CAN defend, but I view those skills as box-checking next to his primary one (ball-handling/passing). If the ball-handling and passing plays, he’s better than Mo. If it doesn’t, I don’t think he’s in the league.
For as much as I enjoyed Danny Wolf at Michigan, I am rather pessimistic as to his NBA future. The only way he sticks in the league for any duration of time IMHO is if he can really improve his shooting. His FT shooting numbers do not inspire optimism that he will ever be a great outside shooter. He’s just a tough fit in the NBA. While he could passably guard college perimeter players, he did struggle against the occasional NBA level athlete that we faced. And when in the NBA, that’s all he is going to see if he is trying to play the 4 spot. And his ball handling that was occasionally brilliant but too often loose is going to struggle against NBA quality defenders. It’s just a big step up in competition for him and I’m not sure he does anything at a high enough level for the NBA. His college skills that were good enough like post game, dribbling, passing, 3 point shot, and defending are all well below average in the NBA. He is going to be fighting for backup minutes at the 5 and I don’t know if he has enough rim protection to really stand out nor enough shooting to be a stretch 5.
We’ll see. I could be wrong. But to me he just looks like a highly skilled college big man that doesn’t do anything at a high enough level for the NBA.
Mo Wagner has stuck for a long time in the NBA because he can shoot and he can score at a high enough level to be playable as a stretch 5.
FWIW Mo’s shot has absolutely not translated at all and also he was very close to flaming out of the nba after his rookie deal, then he found a niche after that
Yeah the story of Mo is that as a spot up guy he found a way to be an awesome close-out attacker/driver and an awesome cutter because his shooting is sort of poor.
Mo always had a great handle for his size so I think that was a possibility
and Danny is different but I do think there’s a world that he’s still an NBA rotational piece even if his shooting is not good
the thing with Mo’s shot is it shows how hard it is to shoot at the NBA level compared to college. Mo shot 37% on catch and shoot 3s this year which is pretty good for a big guy. And he hits FTs at an 80% rate. The odds seem slim on Danny Wolf ever shooting that well in the NBA.
yeah I think that his successful NBA career is predicated on his ball-skills
Maybe an obvious statement, but that would involve cleaning up his turnovers, I would think.
I have an (unproven) theory that some players’ jump shots just don’t translate to taking deeper 3s, even if they are good shooters. Mo is a good shooter, but his shot always had a ton of arc, which worked for him in college. But move that shot deeper, and there’s just too much variance.
You seen Jokic shoot 3s before?
my unproven theory is that NBA defenders are much better than in college and you need to be comfortable having a much quicker decision making process to shoot and a quicker release.
I’d pick Danny due to him being a future multi time all-nba player
and as we all know, every shooting coach in the country is just showing kids jokic video now and telling them to do that. “make sure you shuffle your feet a bunch. also your shoulders should be seemingly behind your head for some reason. and it should look like you’re going to fall over every time you shoot. do this right and you’ll hit 40%+”
Good point lol. It probably is just as simple as “if you’re not that good of a shooter, you shoot worse in the NBA.”
True. There are just some players jump shots where it feels like their mechanics fall apart the moment they move deeper than the college line.